Jenny Simpson’s favorite part of the Drake Relays is seeing some of the best Iowa high school athletes compete alongside some of the best in the world. In those moments, she smiles, if only because she sees a younger version of herself.

When Simpson was still at Oviedo High School in Florida, she once met Jackie Joyner-Kersee at a dinner. Joyner-Kersee ended her career as one of the greatest American track athletes ever, making four Olympic teams and winning six total medals. A young Simpson was awestruck.

“She was really inspiring to me and just an incredibly down-to-earth woman,” Simpson said. “You have this wide-eyed view of who these people are, and then you shake their hand and they wave at you, and it’s just more human.

“That experience was really important to me.”

Since then, Simpson has grown into an American track star herself. She’s won four medals on the international stage, including a 2011 world title in 1,500-meter run, an Olympic bronze in the same event two years ago and, just last summer, a world silver medal in London.

And she doesn’t plan on stopping any time soon.

Chasing an American record

The one-time Webster City resident is back in Iowa this week for the 2018 Drake Relays, where she will take aim at the American outdoor two-mile record. The event is scheduled for 8:08 p.m. on Friday.

“I’m always really grateful that the Drake Relays make such an effort to get me back every year,” Simpson said earlier this week. “I also super appreciate the effort to come up with a creative way to get me back and do something special for the fans.

“I’m really looking forward to the record attempt.”

The mark she’s after is nine minutes, 20.25 seconds, set by Shannon Rowbury in 2014. Simpson, a five-time Drake Relays champion, will have to navigate a field that includes Brenda Martinez and up-and-coming star Alexa Efraimson in order to run down the record.

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Iowa native Jenny Simpson works her way up the crowd as she competes in the women's 1500 meter run Friday, April 28, 2017, at Drake Relays in Des Moines.(Photo: Michael Zamora/The Register)

‘I want to send that message’

The two-mile is more than twice as long as her usual 1,500-meter races, but it isn’t a completely foreign concept. While at the University of Colorado, she won three NCAA titles in the 3,000-meter steeplechase and twice finished second at the NCAA cross-country championships.

More than anything, Simpson has embraced the longer competitions as part of her training. Now at 31 years old, she’s had to get somewhat creative in order to stay competitive on both the national and international stage.

“My races are often four minutes long, and now I’m getting ready to run nine-minute races,” Simpson said. “I’m really focusing on being able to run hard and keep going on tired legs. That’s an important part of me coming to Drake and wanting to set the American record in the 2-mile.

“I want to send that message that I’m still getting better. I hit a medal in 2017. I want to have some great runs at some different distances in 2018, and really be the best athlete I can be and make a run in 2020. I definitely want to make the team one more time.”

Still getting faster at 31 years old

Should Simpson qualify for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, it would be her fourth-straight Olympic team. Her bronze-medal performance in Rio two years ago was a historic one, as she became the first American woman to win an Olympic medal in the 1,500-meter run.

She followed with a 2017 world silver medal, and the only thing stopping Simpson from perhaps winning international hardware in each of the last three years was her shoe falling off during the finals of the 2015 world championships in Beijing (she still finished 11th).

The trick, she’s found, is consistency. She still trains at Colorado under coach Mark Wetmore, where competing with the current crop of collegiate athletes helps keep her young. She continues to mix and match her training and competition regimens to keep her mind fresh.

“Hope is such an important ingredient,” Simpson said. “If you believe you can get better and you put a future goal on paper and you really work for it, that is such an important component to never settling and still getting faster at 31 years old.

“I think the last two years is just the fruit of a long-term commitment. I’ve been running at the world-class level for the last 12 years, and these last two years has shown that, sometimes, the commitment has to be 12 years long in order to see the greatest fruit come from it.”

‘If I can do it, they can do it, too’

Simpson hopes to personify that determination this week. She tends to run fast at Drake, as she’s never lost a race on the Blue Oval. Just last year, she held off Martinez to win the 1,500-meter by just three-tenths of a second, crossing the line in 4:16.10.

This year, she’s aiming for more. Along the way, she hopes to serve as a vessel for inspiration to any young high school track athlete that might be watching — the same way Joyner-Kersee did for her all those years ago.

“It’s always really funny when kids come up and they’re excited to meet me, and then they lose track of what to say and they freeze up in excitement,” Simpson said. “It’s been a lot of fun to see how my running and career has brought a lot of joy to young people.

“I’m just realizing that, sure, I can go win a world medal in some far-off land, but there’s nothing quite like putting on a great performance in front of young American eyes, where they can see that I’m no different than they are — and that if I can do it, they can do it, too.”

Cody Goodwin covers wrestling and high school sports for the Des Moines Register. Follow him on Twitter at @codygoodwin.